Again, this chapter will be edited later--along with the rest of the chapters--so ignore any typos for now :)
Haydn's POV cont.
“Adriana. . . H-how?”
Before I even had time to question her, Trace ran over in our direction and embraced her in his arms, making her scream out in pain. Quickly, he pulled away and all of us looked at her in confusion. She didn't have any visible sign of damage to her body, but then again, she was wearing a pair of sweats and a long sleeve shirt over her pale skin. Not wanting to take a risk, I grabbed her hand and pulled her in the direction of my bedroom with a little bit of input from her brother.
“Don't touch her, Haydn—”
“—I can assure you that sex is the last thing on my mind right now, blondie.” With that, I continued to walk with her into my room and closed the door quietly behind us. Silence fell upon the both of us, and even though I had Adriana safely back in front of me again, something seemed off. She was being quiet, not the same temperamental girl that she usual was, and when her brother hugged her, she didn't hug back, but she whimpered in pain. The only thing that I could possibly think of was that she was either really sore, or in a lot of pain from whatever her kidnapper had done to her. “Take off your clothes for me.”
Finally looking up to meet my eyes, I was somewhat hurt when I saw that she was now looking at me with fear in her eyes. I reached out to place my hand on her shoulder to tell her that everything was going to be OK, but she quickly stepped back and her back was now against the wall of my small room. “Don't t-touch me, Haydn.”
I frowned.
What had changed in her that made her so afraid of me? “Adriana, what's wrong—”
“—Haydn, just leave me alone!” I had expected her to scream it, but it was nothing more than a hushed whisper. It almost seemed like she was afraid to talk to me. This had never been a problem before, so what could have happened to her while she was gone that changed her personality so drastically?
Taking a slow step in her direction, I paused whenever she looked like she was getting a little more frightened and eventually reached her shaking body. The frown on my face couldn't have gotten any deeper even if I tried, but I knew that I couldn't let her shaky behavior stop me from figuring out what was going on with her. “Adriana,” I whispered, placing my hand on her face and making her slowly look up at me, “please, just let me see what's wrong.” Looking even deeper into her eyes with what was supposed to be a soothing look, I took a breath and stepped closer. “Please, let me see what's wrong.”
She opened her mouth to say something, maybe to protest, but much to my surprise, she simply nodded and motioned for me to step back. With much anticipation, I watched as she took off her shirt, revealing a bruised and beaten torso, followed by the removal of her sweats that revealed even more bruises, and a few cuts and scrapes. All over her chest was something that I presumed were hickies, and when she looked up at me with not fear, but sadness in her eyes, I knew now exactly who had taken her, exactly what had happened and exactly what I was going to do when I saw him.
“I'm gonna kill him.”
Now growing wide eyed, Adriana shook her head and took a step towards me, making herself wince in the process. “Don't, Haydn. That's what he wanted. . . He sent me back here because he wants you to be angry and he wants you to act blindly.” Now cupping my face the way I had done hers, she looked me right in the eyes before looking at my lips and back up again. “I'll tell you everything that you want to know about what happened to me, but you can't go after him. Just do me that favor and don't look for him.” I was about two seconds from ignoring her request, but when tears began to brew in her eyes, I knew that I couldn't. “Please. . .”
Every fiber in my being was telling me not to let Jayson get away with what he did, and I knew that I wasn't going to, but for right now, under the request of someone I was really beginning to care for, I knew that I would have to wait. Jayson would get his when the right time came, but right now, my main concern was getting Adriana back to the way she had been before she left. I knew it wasn't going to be easy, but I had to try. . . It was the only way to get things finished.
Adriana's POV
About an hour or two had passed since I first arrived, and now I was just laying down in Haydn's room while he handled some business in the living room. I wasn't sure why I was being so hesitant to him when I knew all he wanted to do was help, but after everything that I had endured under Jayson's 'care' it really shouldn't have been all that surprising.
Much to my surprise, Haydn was very careful with me until I managed to open up to him at least a little bit. He even pushed it a little when he helped me—literally—scrub my back while I was taking a bath not too long ago. I wasn't sure what it was, but something about him seemed different; seemed more protective over me. Maybe be being gone for a little was a good thing for him? Maybe he'll finally be able to tell me that he actually does care and that I'm not just some ploy to get his mission—whatever it was—done.
Smiling at the thought, I bit my lower lip and closed my eyes, trying my hardest not to think about anything that happened in the last two weeks. Of course, as soon I closed my eyes, I found myself getting exhausted and nearly falling to sleep. It was only to be expected though; Jayson had left me at my house and made me walk all the way over here—with the bruises and everything. The entire walk was literally a pain, and though I could have easily just stayed at my house and lied there until morning, I didn't want to be alone. Sure, my initial idea had been to stay by myself until I could figure everything out, but look what happened because of it!
I was drugged, kidnapped and beaten for a little less than two weeks, and my body suffered because my mind was an idiot. Though what happened was bad, it honestly could have been a lot worse. Jayson couldn't have let me go at all, and then what would have happened? He would just continue to hurt me and eventually get tired of me until he had someone dispose of me. So, I could be dead, but I'm not.
Unable to stay awake any longer, I closed my eyes and let myself fall asleep; probably one of the dumbest ideas I've ever had—second to me leaving and staying on my own.
* * * * *
Splashing my body with freezing cold water, Jayson stood over me, blocking out the small light that was being offered by the room, and I quickly shot up and moved back against the stone wall. Noticing that I was shivering, he let out a small laugh and shook his head, moving the belt that was in his hands back and forth. “You know, I heard that cold water makes the belt hurt even more. Do you think that that's true?”
If I didn't answer, he would just get angry and hit me anyway, but if I did and he didn't like the answer, he would still hit me. I was pretty much screwed either way, so I went with the simplest answer. “I honestly don't know, Jayson. . .” I refused to meet his eyes, because I knew if I did, I would see that menacing gleam that I was sadly growing so used to, and it scared me. 'How could someone willingly keep someone prisoner like an animal, beat them everyday and then just carry on with his life like he wasn't doing anything wrong?'
Not bothering to ask him that, I brought my knees to my chest, still freezing cold and tried to warm myself up. He noticed this and took a step towards me, making me flinch. Every time he did that, it meant that more pain was coming and I honestly wasn't sure my body could endure much more of it. Apparently, me flinching gave him a reason to want to hit me again because he quickly raised his belt and was about to bring it down on my skin when the front door opened and someone took a few hesitant steps inside. When I looked up, I saw a familiar head of blond hair, and my heart clenched in my chest. “Sorry to interrupt you, Jayson, but someone is here to see you.”
Letting out a sound that closely resembled a growl, he put the belt down and turned to face Christina for a second, not taking a single step away from me. “Who the hell is so important that you're interrupting me?”
Swallowing the lump in her throat, she shrugged and nervously rubbed her arm as if to buy herself some time. “It's Eric. He wanted to talk to you about something—”
Quicker than either of us could have comprehended, he stomped over to her and put his hand around her neck, nearly lifting her off of the ground. “Does it look like Eric is more important than what I'm doing?” Clearly, she was unable to answer him with his hand nearly ripping her head off of her body, but that seemed to aggravate him even further because he threw her to the side like a rag doll and proceeded up the stairs; slamming the door behind him.
In front of me now, was Christina's coughing body, and when she looked over at me, I could almost swear I saw a hint of jealousy in her eyes. When she was finally able to speak, she sat up and narrowed her eyes at me. “I don't understand what's so damn special about you, but it must be something if he would rather be down here hitting you than upstairs fucking me.” Laughing to herself, she shook her head and stood up, using the table to hold herself. “But whatever, better you getting hit than me, right?”
Not bothering to answer her, I looked down at my hands and began to play with my fingers, just to give myself something to do. And of course, her and Jayson and her shared the same small temper because when I ignored her, she stomped over to me and grabbed a handful of my hair, forcing me to look up at her. I didn't scream, but I did look up at her in anger and attempted to get her hand off of me. “Get the hell off, Christina!”
She grinned an evil grin and shook her head. “No, I don't think I will. In fact,” she slammed my head against the wall, giving me a head ache and making my vision blur, “I think I'm going to have a little bit of fun with you until Jayson comes back.” And just as she reached to hit my head again, the sound of a gun went off and blood splattered everywhere.
In shock, I watched as Christina fell to the ground in a pool of her own blood and I screamed when I realized that she was dead. Looking up, I saw that Jayson was holding a gun in my direction with an annoyed look on his face. “I swear, she was getting on my nerves, wasn't she on yours, Love?” Still shaking in shock, I was unable to answer his question, which—of course—annoyed him because he pointed the gun in my direction and put his finger on the trigger. “You know, your silence is seriously starting to piss me off, Adri. I might as well give you a reason to be quiet, right?” And with that, he pulled the trigger, making a loud boom go off in my ears, and a scream to escape my mouth.
* * * * *
Sitting up with a scream, I quickly took in my surroundings and realized that I was no longer in Jayson's basement, but still in the safety of Haydn's apartment. That alone let me calm down a little bit, but when someone barged into the room, I fell back in shock and right off of the bed, making the person quickly scramble over to me to help me. “Are you OK, Adri? What happened?”
I looked up to see Chase's blue eyes staring down at me with concern taking over. Though my body was in a lot of pain from the fall and the bruises, I wasn't going to say anything to worry him any more than he already was. “Fine, just had a bad dream.” Not taking his hand when he reached to help me up, I climbed back onto the bed to see that he was followed by Haydn, Trace and— “Cassandra?”
Not bothering to hide anymore, she came out from behind Haydn and Trace and walked over to me. “Hi, Adriana. . .”
I raised an eyebrow, wondering what she could be doing here, but then I guess this was some kind of search party to find me, right? Still, it couldn't hurt to see what kind of answer I'd get out of her. “What are you doing here? I would think that the last group of people you wanted to associate yourself with was gang members.”
This made Haydn give her a strange, accusing look that I couldn't really understand. “You mean you accused me of bringing her into this and she doesn't even know your part in this whole thing?”
Before Cassandra could answer, I looked at Haydn with even more confusion playing on my features and then back at Cassandra. “Cas, what is he talking about? What 'part' do you play in all of this mess?” Taking a second to answer, she blew out a sigh and outstretched her hand in Chase's direction, which he happily took. I didn't understand at first, but when I saw the way he looked at her and the way she looked back, I instantly understood. “You guys are dating, aren't you.”
She didn't say anything, but she did nod as if to say I was right, and right then and there I knew there was a lot for me to catch up on.